So it seemed. In line in front of me was a man who told me he was a social studies teacher, waiting to purchase “Obama’s War” and another book. I asked him if he was planning to buy the Bush memoirs and he sneered, “I wouldn’t waste my time.”

That’s his loss, because “Decision Points” is well worth reading. (By the way, why is it that a social studies teacher – in a high school, presumably – is so reflexively anti-Republican, with no apparent sense of considering opposing viewpoints. He seemed to personify those zealots beyond my understanding – diehard “Bush haters.”)

But across the nation, at least 220,000 copies were sold on the first day of the book’s release. The publisher, Random House, said it was its highest first-day sales of a non-fiction book since “My Life,” the Bill Clinton memoirs.

Just under 500 pages, the book was released last Tuesday, and President Bush has been busy on the book-signing and interview circuit. “A lot of people don’t think I can read, much less write,” he joked to Oprah Winfrey.

On the Rush Limbaugh program, the popular radio host tried to bait President Bush into criticizing his successor, but “W” wasn’t biting. “You want to make news,” Bush told his host. “I want to sell books.”

What did make news was something President Bush told TV host Matt Lauer. After Hurricane Katrina, Kanye West, the rap music performer, claimed that the federal response was slow because George Bush “doesn’t like black people.” Bush writes, and repeated to Lauer, that he (the former president) resents the false accusation of being called a racist.

(After the interview with Bush, Lauer went back to West to ask for his response. If there is any doubt about West’s cowardly character, exhibited in his unjustified name-calling and refusal to own up to his offense, check out West’s non-apology.)

Elsewhere, the book reveals that Dick Cheney offered to step down from the vice presidential spot before the 2004 election, if President Bush thought that might be best. The vice president suggested that leaving the ticket might quiet those critics who saw Cheney as the president’s Darth Vader. Bush thought about the offer, before affirming his friend’s spot on the ticket a few weeks later.

The minor “buzz” created by this revelation has centered on political gossip – “what if?” But I think the incident is revealing of Bush’s character, and Cheney’s. For the vice president, it shows a certain selflessness, which Bush rightly appreciated. For the former president, it shows that Bush valued effective teamwork above political considerations.

Unlike many memoirs, “Decision Points” is not written not as a chronological narrative. Instead, it is a thematic recounting of more than a dozen key decisions Bush made. The story of how he decided to quit drinking is quite amusing. Laura Bush confronted her husband after he got intoxicated and asked a woman during a family gathering, “So, what is sex like after 50?” – bringing the family gathering to a sudden, stony, silence.

Bush quit cold turkey, aided by his evangelical faith. (By the way, his faith is genuine. He mentions, in a matter of fact way, that he began his last day in office just like every other day, by reading his Bible. In my view, Bush is concrete evidence of the power of a biblical faith – a principled life lived in the toughest arena.)

I liked Bush’s recounting of his quick courtship of the former Laura Welch – a mutual friend introduced them at a backyard barbecue in Texas -- and his take on their marriage: “The best decision I ever made.”

But the book also illustrates the former president’s willingness to own up to mistakes. For example, he admits that he should have landed near New Orleans, instead of merely observing from the air, in the first days after Hurricane Katrina.

On the biggest decision of his presidency, the decision to invade Iraq, Bush remains firm that he made the right call based on information available at the time. As we now know, the intelligence indicating that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction proved inaccurate.

“But at the time,” Bush writes, “(the assessment that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction) reflected the considered judgment of intelligence agencies at home and around the world.” Bush takes pains to point out that a universal consensus of national intelligence agencies, as well as American elected officials across the political spectrum, believed that reports of Saddam’s possession of WMD were accurate.

Saddam’s record of using destructive weapons to destroy his enemies was also well known. To ignore the intelligence and to wait to react until after Saddam unleashed such weapons would have been irresponsible, Bush writes.

I have to agree. (I’m still not sure why nobody has considered the possibility that Saddam in fact had such weapons, but managed to smuggle them out during the long run-up to the invasion of Iraq, perhaps to Syria or another friendly nation. It seems that Saddam was just calling our bluff. But maybe the Iraqi strongman followed the example of drug dealers, who flush drugs down toilets between the time police announce a raid and the time the cops break down the front door. Bush, however, does not mention such a possibility.)

In any case, the invasion did remove Saddam, eventually. That’s a good thing. After the initial invasion, Bush’s decision to “up the ante” by means of a surge in troop strength did prove correct in dampening down violence by insurgents.

Overall, “Decision Points” is a frank and wise account of a presidency overwhelmingly right about the big picture – protecting America with a pro-active foreign policy and an attempt to solve long-standing domestic dilemmas. (Efforts at reforming immigration policy and Social Security died in the Congress.)

By the way, I liked Bush’s response when Matt Lauer tried to flatter the former president by mentioning that Bush’s approval ratings have risen since the last days of his presidency.

“Who cares?” Bush replied. In a world driven by polls, that’s not a bad response.